


Fated

by Thomaddicted



Series: Sterek Valentines Week 2021 [7]
Category: Sterek - Fandom, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: A Happy Ending, Abuse, Alternate Universe - Future, Argent Family, Blood, Fighting, Graphic deaths, Hale family - Freeform, Implied Sexual Abuse, M/M, Martin Family - Freeform, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Rescue Missions, Stilinski Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:08:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29455047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thomaddicted/pseuds/Thomaddicted
Summary: Derek Hale is a prisoner of the Argent family, forced to perform, in every way, for the depraved family that has plagued his family's blood line for generations.The arrival of an old woman tied to his family's past gives Derek hope that rescue is near, and under the influence of her words, Derek begins to see lifetimes past, as he waits, and hopes for the future to deliver his salvation in the form of someone he knows intimately, but has never met.A Heist movie, a love story, Past lifetimes in a Future fic, this story has it all: Young prisoner/victim Derek Hale, a mysterious old woman, Abusive Caligula Level Argents, a Circus, Stilinskis being badasses, raw meat, French!, graphic villain deaths, revenge, REVEEENNNGGGGEE!! And a surprisingly sweet happy ending!
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Sterek Valentines Week 2021 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150535
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55
Collections: Sterek Valentine Week





	Fated

**Author's Note:**

> Seventh in the series for Sterek Valentine Week, 2021
> 
> Prompt: Fate  
> Rating: R (Adult situations, Language, Graphic Death, Graphic Physical, Verbal, and Mental abuse, Implied Sexual Abuse, Past Trauma, Current Trauma, multiple character Deaths, yet somehow a very happy ending, so it's kinda worth the read!)

Derek Hale lands in his cell with a thud. The silver collar around his neck is heavy, strong enough to keep him permanently weak, but not strong enough that his Wolf healing can’t keep him healthy. 

The door to his cage clangs shut with a loud metallic bang. “Sweet dreams, mongrel.” The jailer growls at him. 

Derek Hale is a featured attraction at the Argent Family “Circus”. Really, Derek is a sideshow attraction, the Amazing Wolf Man, where 5 times a day, the Argents trot him out to the masses, send about a thousand or more volts of electricity through the collar, causing Derek to shift on command. Derek can’t even control it, nor can he escape it. 

Men cheer in disdain, women and children shriek in fear, then howl in laughter as the Argent’s bring out huge, oversized props. A large dog bowl full of water, and a rawhide bone. Large flaming hoops are set up for Derek to jump through. He’s a star, and he hates it. And since he was a child, it's the only life he's ever known.

Tonight, there is activity in the pens. 

The guards are escorting an old woman into one of the cages. She looks ancient, and is stooped over as she shuffles along, her stringy hair hanging on either side of her downcast face. 

“Put her in next to the bitch.” Pierre Argent, Head of the Argent family, commands cruelly. “We’ll feed her when she decides she wants to speak, and be civil.” 

The guards show some decorum, and ease her into the cell, instead of tossing her to the floor the way they are so content to do with Derek. They lock her in, and leave. Derek’s cage is several feet from hers, and he leans over toward the bars. Only so close, as they are electrified, but Derek calls out in a hoarse, quiet whisper. “Are you okay?” 

The woman cocks her head, but says nothing. 

Derek tries to gain her attention again, but after she remains silent, Derek gives up. He does take a roll from his food tray, and rolls it through the bars, into her cage. In the morning, it is gone and Derek hopes that she at least ate that. 

So it goes for the next couple of weeks, Derek sneaking food off his tray, and giving her what he can. The Argents remain committed to making Derek feel like an animal, feeding him only raw meat, and some bread and vegetables. Derek does what he can to make sure to give the old woman untainted morsels, trying to cook he meat, unsuccessfully, on the bars of his cage for her.

One day, they are on the road, traveling. The cages are in large freight trucks that travel long distances. This is the first time Derek hears the old woman speak. 

“ _Destin._ ” 

Derek cocks his head. “What?” 

“ _Destin._ ” The woman rasps, her voice cracked and weary. She sounds like an old crypt opening. “Fate.” 

Derek eases forward, careful not to touch the bars. “What about it?” 

“I sit.” The woman says. “I listen. I learn.” There is a long pause. “Fate.” She repeats, before raising her head to look at Derek. For the first time, Derek can see her eyes. They are milky white, clouded. “ _Pas longtemps maintenant._ ” 

Derek stares at the woman’s eyes, until she looks down, blindly. She remains quiet, until they get to the place they are going. 

Days later, Derek is brought back, thrown into his cage. It is post show, and he has earned them a small fortune. The old woman is sitting in her cage, an electric shackle and tag on her ankle. Derek knows she is barely mobile, and it infuriates him that they treat her like she could escape. At least now they are feeding her, since she has begun to earn them income. She is a seer, and a reader of cards. Old magic that people of the 22nd century dismiss as hokum, yet still pay to hear. 

Derek lands in his cell with a thud. He doesn’t know much more he has left in him. 

“More than you think.” The old woman rasps, after the guards have gone away. “More than you think, child.” 

Derek looks over at Marie, the old lady, who is now shuffling her cards. Derek is amazed that she is so accurate, so dexterous at this skill. In the evenings they talk, Marie never touches her cards, but has a small bag containing bones, small, delicate things that she rattles before emptying them out onto the floor in front of herself. 

“Mmmmm.” Marie mumbles. “ _Grand-mere parle ce soir!_ ” 

Derek lays on the floor of his cage. He cannot remember a family. 

“She says you are born of the fire, like your ancestors.” Derek raises his head. He hasn’t spoken much to others, much less Marie, and NEVER about his past, his family. “She says, your savior comes soon. On the next full moon.” 

Derek shakes his head. He doesn’t SAY he doesn’t believe that, but Marie lays her hand over the bones. 

“He comes, marked in the stars for you, _mon petite loup_ , make no mistake about that.” 

Marie’s old, gnarled hands claw up the bones on the floor of her cell. “Twenty Days.” 

Derek closes his eyes, ignoring the stinging of the tears behind the lids. He can hear Marie’s voice, softly call out. “He’s looking for you, _mon petite loup_ , and he’s been searching for centuries.” 

Derek dreams, and in his dreams, he sees fire. He doesn’t remember fire, but he sees it blazing around him, hears the panicked screams of others. Feels a woman clutching him to her chest as she runs. Derek knows only chaos. 

There is light, invasive, not warm. Cold, and intruding. He only knows a cage. He only knows the lick of Pierre Argent’s whip, and the uninvited attention of Catherine and Christopher, Pierre’s children. They are twins, and each seem to enjoy being more evil than the other. Derek ignores how he feels when they summon him. He blacks out and lives only in the world of his cell, and the Hell of the center ring.

“They died to save you.” Marie says one night, unbidden. “They tried. Tried and died.” 

Derek is upset and doesn’t want to listen to it, but more often than not, the old blind woman knows what she is talking about. She mentioned that Catherine was going to have a short, unplanned trip, and one day, coming out of her wagon before a show, she became entangled in her costume, tumbling down the wagon stairs, and breaking her leg. Derek earned fifteen sharp lashes from Pierre for laughing uncontrollably when he told Derek what happened, and why Chris was going on in her place. 

“One for each year you survived, ungrateful whelp!” Pierre coldly said, as his lash came down hard over Derek’s bare form. “Ungrateful… horrible, terrible…animal.” 

Derek closes his eyes, and listens to Marie. “How many days?” 

“Two more…” Marie, holds her hands over the bones. The stars align…. Like they did ages ago. When you were only hundreds of years old.” 

Derek chuckles. He’s barely twenty, he thinks, maybe even younger. Shit, maybe even older. 

“Don’t mock.” Marie points an old, gnarled finger. “Five times! Five times the stars aligned to bring your salvation. Five times your line was cast into the darkness of the ocean, and every time you were saved by the shining star of justice.” 

Derek sighed. “Yeah. Where are they now?” 

“Patience, child.” Marie settled, her hands folded on her lap. I swear on Grand-mere Lydia’s grave, the stars will align for a sixth time.” 

Derek dreams that night. He doesn’t dream of fire, but he knows it’s there, in the background. Derek dreams of a mountain, of a time before time, it seems. There are nomads in tents, and he is in shackles. There is a horn, and a burst of light, and eyes unlike any Derek has ever seen in his life, and a voice shouts at him, “Come on, let’s go!” 

These are fever dreams, no doubt, brought on by Marie’s stories. That dream is supplanted by another, a dream of fancy places, and fancy clothes, and everything looks like lace, and he is running, listening to the sounds of chase all around him. There are dogs barking, and he’s running with a fox, reddish gold, and he’s not chasing the fox, but he knows the fox is leading him. “Follow me, come on!” The fox seems to scream at Derek, and that dream wakes him up, because… a talking fox? That’s absurd. 

Another night, Derek dreams of a fancier time, nightclubs in the dark nights of the city. There is a man there, and he is dancing with Derek, their bodies gliding together on the floor of a nightclub. On a stage, there are what look like dozens of musicians. He is wearing a tuxedo, not unlike the one that their magician wears for his show. Only Derek feels like magic is real here, not like the fake props and distracting cues the magician uses to fleece the masses. Somehow, magic is real.

The night before the night the stars are said to align again, Derek dreams of a time gone by, where he is him, but also not him. He is falling through a dark pool of water, and he can see someone swimming toward him. The water plays a trick on Derek and turns his rescuer blue, and even as Derek sinks, he is aware that this is his friend, this is someone he trusts. Hands grab at Derek and pull him up, up, up into air where Derek feels himself gasping, frightened, angry. "You're not letting me go...." Only it sounds like a threat, not gratitude. 

Derek is sitting with someone underneath the stars, and he is aware this is not just a friend, this is someone he loves. Someone who knows him. Someone whom he can trust. Derek feels a rush as the dream shows them under the moonlight, in a way Derek has not known another person. Derek is with this man, he sees in his dream, all that makes them males, and Derek feels something he's never felt before in kind touches, loving caresses. A kiss, so warm and welcoming Derek wants to cry because surely this is a dream. It doesn't exists, not for him.... Never for him.

Derek wakes up, crying. Everyone is asleep in the dark, and even though he cannot see it, he feels it. The moon is full, and it is calling to him.

The next day, Derek waits. He waits all day. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. He is crestfallen when, by midnight, nothing has happened.

Fe doesn’t speak to Marie, and she doesn’t speak to Derek. 

Derek refuses to believe another word that Marie says ever again before he closes his eyes to sleep. 

The dream he has is unreasonably sweet. It feels not too long ago, sometime in 2121, maybe? The world feels both the same, and so different. Derek is running again, running away from something. There is a hunter there, chasing him, and he has no fox to follow, no partner to lead. Standing in front of Derek is a man, helmeted and steady, a shield in one hand, and a weapon in the other. 

There is a star on his chest, and Derek runs for him, runs TO him. The man advances, and Derek watches as the man swings, not at Derek, but what is chasing after Derek. 

“ _Come on!_ ", the figure screams from behind the mask… “ _Come on…_ ” 

“Let’s go!” 

Derek is awake, and the world is in chaos. There is smoke everywhere, and trauma kicks Derek into a panic. There is no heat, but there is smoke everywhere. In the near distance, Derek can make out Marie, her hand hovering over the bones. “ _Putain de choses m’ont menti._ ” She grumbles. “Twenty-ONE days!” 

Something is breaking the locks on all the cages, and Derek looks expectantly at the door to his own. The door wrenches open, and a figure stands there in front of him. He regards Derek, then speaks into a box on his chest, up near his shoulder. “I need release on 9725, I repeat 9725 AND 9726, one collar, one cuff.” 

Derek feels an incredible surge as his collar falls away from his neck. Derek doesn’t remember a time when it WASN’T on him, and he looks at the figure in front of him, halfway out the door. He peels off his mask, and the face under it is instantly familiar to Derek, though he’s never been physically in front of it ever in his life. 

“Come on…” The figure extends his hand out to Derek, “Let’s go!” 

Derek puts his hand into the one in front of him, they’re three steps out of Derek’s cell when he shouts, “What about…” 

Derek looks back, and Marie’s cage is empty. He sees her up again, hobbling along as quickly as she can, on the arm of another woman, much, much younger, flame red hair sticking out of the bottom of a helmet. 

“Twenty-ONE days!” Marie cackles. “ _Je perds la tete!_ They lied to me, can you believe that?” 

“I know, great grandma, come on.” The girl says, ushering Marie along. “Let’s get you out of here and back home where you belong.” 

Derek follows along, but the group is stopped short as Pierre Argent stands in front of them. An imposing man, he wields a large, silver sword. Derek immediately jumps forward, in half shift and roars, only to retreat as the man charges, swinging his sword with the skill of a man who has murdered millions. 

Derek’s rescuer moves forward, holding a baton, flicking it with his wrist. To Derek’s shock and delight, a large bat extends out of the baton, and the rescuer wields it with authority. 

“You will not best the Argents again, Stilinski.” Pierre threatens, brandishing his blade. 

“You will never harm another Hale again.” Stilinski retorts. “Mine and my family have fought you for hundreds of years, and we will fight you as long as you slither across this world. It’s over, now.” 

“Yes…” Pierre growls. “For YOU!” 

Both men swing into action, and in the melee, both Marie and her kin try to sneak by to make it out, with great difficulty. Derek immediately ducks out, grabs each of the Martin women, and runs them out into pandemonium outside of the pens.

All around them the circus is burning. Workers are running, there are what look like soldiers everywhere. “There!” The young woman points to a truck, where three men stand. They wave her over, as Derek runs them to the truck. The young woman collides with one of the men, and Derek gingerly sets down Marie, in front of another soldier, who is blocking the smoke of the area with a blue scarf tied over his mouth. He claps Derek on the shoulder warmly. “Thank you!” Another soldier with brown eyes and a crooked jaw thanks Derek, gently setting his hand on Derek’s neck. 

For the first time, Derek feels like his senses are open. These people smell familiar, they _SMELL_ like home. It is in that moment, Derek realizes…. 

“I’ve got to go back!” He is already heading back to get Stilisnki, when he comes face to face with Christopher Argent, pointing a gun at his head. 

“No.” The man growls. “You belong..." He clicks the hammer of the gun, "...to me.” 

Derek no longer feels week, and vows to never know fear again. He grabs the gun, which goes off with an explosion. Derek wolfs out, and bites through the evil twin’s arm, severing it at the elbow. Christopher shouts in pain, crying out for help, before Derek watches as some of the other abused sideshow features close in around the stumbling, weakened man. 

Derek feels no remorse as he turns his back, walking away to the pens. Christopher Argent's screams are a horrid chorus in the flame lit night. 

Running back into the cage area, Derek looks around. He smells blood, a lot of it “STILINSKI!” He bellows. He listens for response, and none comes. Derek heads deeper into the area where the two men were left, fighting. As he approaches, Pierre Argent steps forward. He is ragged, haggard, and still gripping his sword. In the flickering light of the fire that has begun to rage around them, he stumbles forward toward Derek. The man’s face is a death masque, red with blood, and as he stumbles, he raises his sword at Derek. 

“Un…grateful…. Animal.” He gurgles, before collapsing. Derek can hear the man’s heart, beating faintly. 

“What an asshole.” Comes a voice from the fire. Derek watches as Stilinski stumbles forward. Derek immediately runs over, catching him before he hits the ground. 

“Come on.” The soldier struggles to get up. “We gotta go, get you to safety.” 

Derek smiles at the man. In the fire’s glow, he can see the man’s eyes flicker with a fire of their own. On the man’s cheek are several dark spots, tiny marks on his pale skin, a negative of the way stars look in he sky. 

“Ar…Argent…” Stilinski coughs. “Is he dead?” 

Derek nods. “He’s dying.” 

The soldier unholsters a gun, and points it at Argent, unloading the entire clip into the body on the floor. 

“How about now?” Stilinski asks, dead serious. Derek pauses, and listens. “Yeah. That did it.” 

Stilinski nods. “Good. Let’s go.” 

In the aftermath of the burning of the circus, Derek sits in a van, with his rescuer. Some of the others have gathered, taking the remaining surviving Supers, as well as the human slaves the Argent's kept, and are trying to map them back to a life they may only have glimpsed before.

The day is early yet, and the fires are burning out. Derek has a blanket around him, though he doesn't need it. He notices that his rescuer regards him respectfully, asking before he approaches him, before he sets a hand to Derek, for the purpose of reading his vitals. The closer he sits to Derek, the more the man's scent seeps into Derek's nose, almost into his pores. 

There is a moment where Derek tears up, and buries his nose in his savior's neck, nuzzling into the pale skin, while he sobs quietly. 

"It's okay." There are arms around Derek, and oh shit, they feel even better than Derek could have ever dreamed. "We're here to protect you. You're safe now. I'm gonna hug you now. You're safe." 

Derek can hear Marie singing softly, something about a little wolf going home.

The drive back is long. Derek doesn't know where they are, only that the middle of nowhere is as apt a description as any. One of the men from before is driving, talking to the soldier in the scarf. Marie sits in the middle of the van. She continues to sing softly to the younger woman, occasionally sharing stories with her, of her ancestors who spoke for the dead, and ran with the wolves almost a century ago. Derek is seated in the back of the van with what he knows, he feels, is his mate.

“Stiles.” The man had introduced himself. “Stiles Stilinski, third of his name.” 

Derek cocks his head. “Third?” 

Stiles nods. “Before we get into all that, let’s just say, we’ve been looking for you for a long time, Mr. Hale.”

“For me?” Derek blinks. “Why?” 

Stiles nods. “It all started a long, long time ago, in place called Beacon Hills. My great, great grandfather Stiles, the first of his name, created a mate bond with the head of what you'll know as your family line, of which you happen to be the third of as well.” 

Derek half listens as he relaxes in the back of the van, resting his head on Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles raises his arm, letting Derek get comfortable as the others drive on, Marie in the middle seat with her grand daughter, mumbling as Derek drifted off to sleep, comforted by Stiles’ scent, a scent that seemed to trigger something deep in his mind, like a memory long since forgotten, that made Derek feel like home. 

Wrapping Stiles arm over his chest, Derek listened to Stiles quietly reciting the history, while Marie chuckled softly. “Six times, _mon petite loup_ , and there will be a seventh, and an eighth, and a ninth...."


End file.
